Carroll: 'Two defenses just duking it out all day long'

(Opening…) Well, we just saw a tremendous defensive football game today. Two defenses just duking it out all day long. The Cards did a nice job. They hung with their approach, and got it done, overcame some turnovers and put together a really good win and effort. They played really well on defense, and harder and tougher than we wanted them to be, and you got to give them credit. They’ve been doing it; they’re like 7 out of 8 now, so it’s no surprise. We went in with great respect for what they were doing, so I don’t have any problem with any of that. It was a slugfest today, and they won out. What this does is turn all of our focus to the next week, and, like I told these guys, I was going to tell them they had to win that game no matter what, anyway, so here we go. We have to go get this last one and try to see if we can secure our division.

(On whether the questionable calls affected the momentum…) Well, calls always affect you someway. I’m not pointing at anything in particular. There’s some stuff that we certainly feel like griping about, but it isn’t going to do us any good, so we’re not going to.

(On the play of Russell Wilson… ) Hard. It was hard today. I don’t know why we had so much coverage on us today, the spacing wasn’t there as much as we were used to. The protection was really good. He had plenty of time, but they were covering us up pretty well. For whatever reason, we just couldn’t find guys open. You have to give them a lot of credit, they did a nice job.

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(On the redzone offense…) I think we were on the two, or something, we should be able to knock that one in. We’ve been great in the red zone, we’ve been doing all kinds of good stuff, and today we just couldn’t get it. We had trouble in all phases with them, and I’m sure that their numbers aren’t any good as well. I haven’t seen them yet. They played great defense against us.

(On his assessment of the offensive line, with Michael Bowie starting…) I can’t tell you, I have to watch the film. I don’t have a good opinion for you.

(On the defensive penalties… ) We had some stuff happen after the whistle, that hasn’t happened for a long time. I don’t know why that showed up today. A couple PI’s, and I can’t tell you, I didn’t see them, didn’t get a good look at them. Sherman was all over Larry, so they called a penalty. I can tell you I didn’t like the one on the sidelines over there at the end, on Malcolm. That was awful late.

(On Wilson struggling with his accuracy today…) We couldn’t get the completions. I think we were 6 for 16 in the first half, that’s just really uncharacteristic. We had a lot of stuff, we had cool things to throw at them, and things we wanted to get in there, the downfield stuff, and we tried them. We used everything. We just couldn’t find the hookups that we normally do. I can’t tell you anything more than that, I’ll have to watch the film.

(On injuries….) Kearse’s ankle is sore. Russell’s [Okung} toe was sore today, at the end of the game. Russell Okung.

(On the referee explanation of the Wilson interception…) One guy said that it hit off the receiver’s foot, and bounced up in the air, and they intercepted it, and two guys said it was incomplete. But, the guy that said he caught it, they went with that one. So, that one could have been the other way around, and they would have had to challenge it, right before the Two Minutes right there. You look at it differently, because it was called a catch on the field. Whether it hit his arm or not, I don’t know. It kind of looked like it did. I couldn’t tell though.

(On Hauschka missing the field goal…) I think the snap was a little high; that’s what I heard, I don’t know that. But, we should nail that one. The bad thing is that we took a penalty, on a missed snap, so we back it up. You kick it from that spot, it goes, five yards closer. But, he’s had a fantastic year, and we’re counting on him to finish in fantastic fashion. He’s been there for us all year long. How that happened, I don’t know.

(On Okung’s toe; same one?….) Yeah.

(On Turbin’s fumble on the kickoff return…) If we have an opportunity, we’re going to put the next guy in, so he doesn’t have to think about it and go out there again. Doug did a great job jumping up, obviously.

(On the importance of it being a must-win game for Arizona…) You guys always talk about that stuff. We must win every week. That’s the only way I understand it. I’m sure they know that the same way. It doesn’t mean anything to me. You’re not asking the question I want to address, here. This goes to next week, and that’s what happens. The people who follow us and care for the Seahawks, that’s what we’re doing. It’s championship week again. We’re very, very fortunate that we have that opportunity, and we’re going to try to make the most of it, and these guys in that locker room, we have to flip the switch, from the frustration of not getting it done today, to turn the next up, which is next week. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to try to do that really well, and see if we can finish this thing off and get what we done and get this division.

(On the running game looking good early, and then struggling…) It was just a couple plays. I thought they played very well up front, and we did not get the movement that we wanted. We hit some plays, that kind of always happens; started fast. All in all, they did a better job than we did. Again, there’s a lot of that stuff where I need to see the film to talk to you guys later, when I get another chance at it.

(On the referee explanation after the denied challenge on the fumble…) I’ll tell you that they couldn’t tell if his knee was down or not. They knew the ball moved. They didn’t know if his knee was down. So, it was inconclusive. It was a good challenge, the ball came out, we just don’t know when it did, and they didn’t have a good enough look to change it. The looks that they had did not show whether his knee was down, so they had to stick with the call. That’s why it’s so powerful, what the call was on the field.

(On calling a time out in the second half with Seattle on defense…) We had a substitution issue right there. We got caught when they changed, we didn’t change properly. We had to switch so that we didn’t have too many guys on the field.

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